


color

by gooseberries



Series: 30 Days of Malec [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dead Alec Lightwood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, Post-Alec Lightwood's Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 12:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberries/pseuds/gooseberries
Summary: Magnus used to love colors and their symbolism. He also used to love his and Alec's goodnight ritual with their kids."Black for hunting through the night,For death and mourning, the color white.Gold for a bride in her wedding gown,And red to call enchantment down,White silk when our bodies burn,Blue banners when the lost return."





	color

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the first of the 30 days of Malec. I'm super sorry about this one, it just demanded to be written. It's not great but it's here.

There were days which Magnus wished could pass without color.   
  
It would certainly be easier without the swathes of pigment forcing its way into every bit of life. Every community seemed to have its own thoughts on what a color was meant to stand for. He could remember having to explain to Alec the contradictory symbolism as Simon once made a comment on how everyone looked like they were attending a funeral. Black, Magnus had told his dear archer, was the symbol of mourning for mundanes. Magnus just felt lucky that the warlocks didn’t seem to have a cohesive thought on what colors were supposed to mean. They weren’t an organized community such as the shadowhunters or mundanes and so hardly had to worry about what color meant what fact of life. It had seemed like more of a bother than anything else.   
  
Still, Magnus had loved his and Alec’s bedtime ritual with their kids.

* * *

  
__ No matter how busy they were, the couple always made sure to say goodnight to their children in the same way. That night had been no different, Alec stumbling through the door with such a stiff posture that Magnus was sure he had too many bruises to be healed by an Iratze alone. Still, the man gave Magnus a quick kiss and headed straight for the room that their boys shared.   
  
A smile warmed Magnus’s expression as he saw Rafael and Max both sitting on Raf’s bed, legs tucked under them and expressions eager.   
  
Magnus had stayed home with them that day, taking minimal clients to ensure he could watch them properly. Sometimes he’d forgotten how much trouble a toddler warlock could get into and having a young shadowhunter there too only seemed to exacerbate the chaos.    
  
“Dad!” Max exclaimed happily, pure joy taking over his little face. The boy hopped up from his perch on Raf’s bed to wrap his little arms around Alec. Though it was clear that the boy loved the both of them, Max had taken a particular liking to his dad lately over his papa. Magnus figured it was because Alec had to work outside of the home while Magnus had made changes to allow himself to work from their home more often than not.   
  
“Hey, Maxie, I missed you,” Alec spoke, wrapping his large frame around his son in a way that Magnus could only describe as protective. Even from the first time he’d met the shadowhunter, Magnus had known that he lived to protect those he loved. He had seen it time and again where Alec was willing to jump into the fire to prevent harm from coming to his family. Watching the Nephilim be so protecting toward a warlock child, their warlock child, always left a heavy emotion in Magnus’s chest.   
“Can we do Izzy’s rhyme now, Papa?” Rafael asked, ever the studious one. Magnus had spent many days answering all of the boy’s questions about both shadowhunter and warlock culture. Rafael was absolutely brilliant and loved to show it off, too. Perhaps he’d been babysat one too many times by his Uncle Jace, Magnus had begun to think.   
  
“Of course. Then it’s straight to sleep for the both of you,” Magnus finally chimed in, gesturing with his hands at the little boy beginning to jump wildly after pulling from Alec’s hug. “C’mon, Blueberry, up in bed.”   
  
Upon wrangling the two boys back into their respective beds, Magnus and Alec bent down to sit on the floor between either of them. “Think you know the rhyme now, Raf?” Alec asked, nothing but pride in his blue eyes. Magnus didn’t know how he’d managed to be this lucky.   
  
“Yep,” Rafael answered simply, sitting up and looking suddenly more serious as he concentrated on the recitation. “Black for hunting through the night,” he began easily.   
  
“Like Dad!” Max interrupted, pointing at Alec’s dark gear he still wore as if this wasn’t a point they’d considered before.   
  
“For death and mourning, the color white.    
Gold for a bride in her wedding gown,    
And red to call enchantment down,” Rafael recited with practiced ease. After their Aunt Isabelle had told them the rhyme to get them to sleep one night, both him and Max demanded that they hear it every night. “White, um...,” Rafael struggled then, his eyebrows pulling together as he attempted to finish the rest of the lengthy rhyme. At first, Magnus had been unsure about a rhyme referencing morbid topics being told to a toddler and child, but both Isabelle and Alec had assured him that they’d heard the same rhyme at that age.   
  
After that, Magnus was able to ignore the idea in the rhyme if only to see the looks of wonder on his children’s faces as it was recited to them each night.   
  
“White silk when our bodies burn,   
Blue banners when the lost return,” Alec supplied, giving a supporting nod to the young shadowhunter. In no time the rhyme was finished, with little more help needed.   
  
“I love you both,” Magnus spoke after his partner said his own ‘goodnight’s. “I am so lucky to have you two.”

* * *

  
He truly had been. Magnus had resigned early on that he wouldn’t have a family. That was not the life meant for an immortal warlock; not when he was unable to have children of his own and any mortal partner or child would pass far before himself. It had never seemed worth the pain the loss would bring him. With Alec and their boys, though, Magnus knew any pain would be worth it. He would give up the world for any of his boys. They were his miracle.   
  
Magnus knew he would see the colors of the rhyme in action. He saw the black every day as Alec pulled on his gear to head to the institute. The gold would be seen soon as there was little doubt that Isabelle and Simon would be engaged soon. He even knew he would see the white, he already had. There was nothing as haunting as seeing rows and rows of shadowhunters with white around their heads at the end of the battle in Idris. When he’d seen the white Alec wore for their child’s namesake years before Magnus knew he never wanted to see it again. Especially not so soon.   
  
The white decorating the halls of the institute did nothing but agitate Magnus. It felt as though the color was there only to taunt him. What had he been expecting, the color seemed to ask, what other endings could he have expected when he chose a mortal to love?   
  
He just thought he would have more time. Magnus just thought he would have the time to say goodbye. He always thought he would know when the last day would come.   
  


* * *

__ “Don’t get up,” Magnus murmured, voice low and crackled from disuse. His arm was wrapped neatly around Alec’s middle as soon as he felt the other shift in bed. He knew the routine; Alec would have to get up early to head off to whatever he was assigned to that day. It was always early rises and late returns for shadowhunters, something that Magnus admittedly hadn’t gotten used to.   
  
A shift was felt again but when Magnus opened his eyes, he saw Alec had turned to face him. A hand was brought up to rest against his cheek with an amount of care that always surprised the warlock. “I have to,” Alec spoke then, pressing a kiss to his lips before untangling himself from the embrace. Within moments the shadowhunter was out of bed and searching for where his gear had ended up the night before.   
  
Magnus simply watched, always in awe of his shadowhunter. It was a welcomed sight when Alec could finally relax in the apartment they now called their own. When the tensions and pressures of being the eldest Lightwood slipped off his shoulders whenever he stepped through the door. It had begun to appear to Magnus that their apartment was a sanctuary. He’d even found that he disliked visiting Alec at work anymore if only for the fact that he would see that same closed off soldier attitude he’d worked so hard to pull away.   
“When will you be home?” Magnus asked, though knew the answer before he finished the question. Their boys had long since stopped requiring either of their presences when it was time to sleep. Max and Rafael were nearing to be teens and thus felt they didn’t need the quality time with their fathers as much. This left Alec time to work later and Magnus to take more clients. The warlock admittedly missed the time when their boys were young if only because they needed him.   
  
“I’ll be home for dinner. I promise,” Alec told him then, walking around the end of the bed to stand beside Magnus. He pressed another kiss against the warlock’s lips, immediately easing the tension beginning to build in Magnus’s shoulders. It was impossible not to worry about his shadowhunter every time the man walked out the door but his promises always seemed to put him at ease. I promise I’ll be home for dinner. I promise I’ll never leave you. I promise I’ll stay.   
  
“I love you.” The bright blue eyes he loved so much brightened at the words, the soft pink lips repeating the phrase back gently, booted feet carrying him out of the apartment and out of his life.

* * *

  
The morning had been like any other, a simple good morning and goodbye. If Magnus had known that would be the last time, then he would have done it all differently. He would have fought to keep Alec in bed, he would have kissed him harder and longer. He would have made his kids repeat the rhyme with their dad even though they protested because damn it that’s what families did.   
  
He would have never turned his gaze away from those beautiful blue eyes and he would have never stopped telling Alec that he loved him.   
  
The white flowers and banners decorating the institute seemed to laugh at him, seemed to ask him why he’d taken anything for granted. If Magnus had known there was limited time, why hadn’t he cherished every moment? Why had he ever grown relaxed and content in the life he had? The white flowers could screw off for all Magnus cared.   
  
The small hand grabbing his own was what pulled Magnus from his thoughts. Looking down he could see Max at his left, looking as unsure and grief-ridden as Magnus felt. He was only twelve and though they’d had the conversation that Raf and Alec would continue to age long best either of them, Magnus hated that Max was coming to know death so soon. He knew death now not because he was an immortal who outlast everyone else, but because fate had pulled his dad from him far too soon. How could anyone ever ask Magnus to tell his twelve-year-old that his dad wasn’t coming back? How was it fair that Rafael had been at the institute when it happened and had seen Alec when he was brought in? Magnus hated that he hadn’t been able to shield his fifteen-year-old son from seeing his dad, broken and bloodied and unresponsive. He hated that by the time he found out and got there, Alec was already gone and those blue eyes were shielded from view.   
  
“I don’t wanna go,” Max spoke softly, eyes staring at the ground, holding his papa’s hand as if to keep him from walking toward that room. The room where they would say their goodbyes.   
  
The sound of a heartbreaking was audible then to Magnus, chest heavy as he knelt down to wrap his son up in his arms. “I know, Blueberry, I know. I don’t want to go either, but we have to. Stay with me, okay? We’ll get through this together,” Magnus promised. He hated the tears filling Max’s adorable blue eyes. He hated the defeated sag of the boy’s shoulders and he hated how unnatural the white suit looked on him. He hated the matching suit he wore himself, the plain garb of mourning for a lost shadowhunter. Magnus knew the shadowhunter ceremonies and colors by heart but he never thought he’d take part in any of them.   
  
“Where’s Raf?” Max asked, sniffling and wiping aggressively at his face. It was clear he didn’t want to cry in this public hallway nor in the ceremony for anyone to see. Magnus had to agree. He didn’t want any of these people to see his mourning; his muted colors, his lack of makeup and the tears he tried to force back.   
  
“He’s meeting us inside,” Magnus told his boy. Rafael had refused to leave the institute since finding out. Thankfully Alec’s parabatai had been there to help the boy through his grief since he refused Magnus’s help. Jace had been there through everything and would continue even now. He adored Alec’s son and had quickly taken to being his mentor as soon as Raf showed interest in becoming a shadowhunter soldier.   
  


* * *

__ The lingering feeling that something was wrong caused Magnus to be unproductive that day. He couldn’t wait for Alec to get home if only for this feeling to slip away. Instead, though, his phone rang. The fact that it was Jace sent chills down Magnus’s spine. Though Alec and Jace were inseparable, the Herondale almost never contacted Magnus. There was something wrong.   
  
“Jace?” Magnus asked, fear and confusion clear in his voice and the way his hand shook to hold the phone up to his ear.   
  
“It’s Alec,” Jace only managed to get out between the sound of crying and heavy breathing. Eventually, there was the sound of dry heaving; pure and unadulterated grief. “He’s...”   
  
“Jace,” Magnus repeated, this time with force behind it. He needed an explanation. He needed evidence that his Alec was only hurt and this wasn’t as dreadful as Jace was making it sound. “Jace, what happened? Is he okay?”   
  
“Get down here. Don’t bring Max. He can’t, he can’t see it.” The call was hung up but the grief lingered. Magnus knew immediately with Jace’s statement that this was as bad as it could get. Alec had been injured plenty of times and Max had always accompanied him because the little warlock always brought a smile to Alec’s face. He always lifted the spirits of the room in a moment.    
  
Immediately Magnus dialed another number, hurriedly speaking as soon as the person answered. “Cat, I know you’re probably busy but I need you to watch Max for me. Just for a bit, I-something’s wrong with Alec and I need to be there.”   
  
“Of course. I’ll be there. Is he okay?” Cat asked through the phone.   
  
Magnus shook his head, vision blurring from the tears he never wanted in the first place and fingertips sparking with blue magic. “No, I don’t think so.”   
  
The call was ended and as soon as Catarina arrived, Magnus portalled outside the institute. Max had been in his room but Magnus couldn’t do a goodbye then. The boy would understand, he hoped. He just had to get to his shadowhunter.   
  
The stares were the first thing he noticed. Other shadowhunters at the institute watched him pass through the hallways, giving him looks of pity. It wasn’t a feeling that he was used to and it wasn’t something he wanted to feel ever again.   
  
The next thing he noticed was Rafael on the floor outside the infirmary, Jace’s strong body surrounding him in a tight hug. Both of them were clearly crying, both of them sounding in physical pain. Magnus could hear Jace whispering quietly, “I know, I know,” repeatedly to his trainee, to his parabatai’s son. Neither of them seemed to even notice when Magnus walked by.   
  
The next was the large crowd in the infirmary. They were surrounding one bed and shielding Alec from immediate view. There was Isabelle wrapped up in her mother’s arms, Simon with a hand on her shoulder in an attempt at comfort. There was Clary, the expression of mourning clear on her face. Even Robert had made the trip, proving to Magnus how dire the situation was. When Magnus finally made it to join the circle around the bed, he wanted to pass out then and there.   
Blood covered the bed and the black clothes were torn around the shadowhunter’s chest. Deep claw marks were revealed in the tears, proving how he’d been injured. Then, the final piece that ripped Magnus’s heart right out of his chest was the white strip of silk already neatly tied around his shadowhunter’s bloodied and bruised face. Those blue eyes were forever shielded from view.   
  
Magnus didn’t remember much after.   
  


* * *

The warlock squeezed his son’s hand then carefully guided him into the ceremony room.   
  
The first thing he saw was the crowd to his right, and the next the lone figure standing over the altar in the center. Magnus walked carefully, keeping a firm hold of Max’s hand, guiding them both to meet Rafael. Once they were there, Rafael tore his stare from the body in white and thrust himself into Magnus’s arms. The boy had always been more reserved, reminding Magnus of Alec in the way he kept his emotions contained. Even now Rafael didn’t cry but instead held onto his papa for comfort. Magnus wished he could pull Rafael from the program, pull the Nephilim blood from him and keep him safe for the rest of time.   
  
He didn’t want his sons to hurt like this anymore. He didn’t want to hurt anymore.   
  
Finally, Magnus forced himself to look at Alec. He had been cleaned up, the bruises on his face healed for the ceremony. Magnus was sure the claw marks remained though were carefully hidden beneath the white suit they’d dressed Alec in. Magnus ran a hand over Alec’s pale one, tensing as he felt an unnatural chill to the man’s skin.    
  
“ _White silk when our bodies burn_ ,” Rafael whispered, voice raspy as if he’d done nothing but cry in the time between that night and the ceremony. The rhyme pulled Magnus’s hand from Alec’s fingers to the white silk wrapped and tied firmly over Alec’s face. It covered the top half in an eerie image. All Magnus wanted was to see those blue eyes once more. He ached to see the shine in the blue eyes that came whenever he told Alec how much he loved him. It would never happen, though, for Magnus knew as well as anyone that blue didn’t belong in a shadowhunter funeral. For death and mourning, the color’s white.   
  
He could tell that much in the decoration. White banners covered the walls as well as white lilies. Everyone in the crowd wore all white. When Magnus finally pulled his hand from Alec and turned to face the crowd, the rest of the remaining joined him and the kids. Jace nodded to Magnus and then immediately stood behind Rafael, hand on his shoulder. The warlock knew he wouldn’t have to worry about his eldest; Jace would make it his mission to protect his parabatai’s son. If he couldn’t protect Alec, then he would keep Rafael from harm. Isabelle hugged Magnus and then took Max’s other hand. The warlock was absolutely in awe of his Aunt Isabelle and always had been. It made sense that he would seek her comfort too. Maryse and Robert joined them, too, standing just to the side of Isabelle. Magnus could pick out Clary and Simon as well as a few others in the crowd, clinging to each other. This wasn’t just a tough loss for Magnus, but for many of the shadowhunters that Alec had touched.   
  
The ceremony will now begin. One of the Silent Brothers spoke, calling the attention of everyone in the room. The remaining will join the fallen. They were already there. Alec’s ever-growing family stood right beside him as always, Magnus’s lip quivering as he tried to hold it together. He would be strong now and wait until he wasn’t in the presence of these shadowhunters to break down.   
  
Those remaining will say the name of the fallen.   
  
Silence. Magnus found it wasn’t his place. He would be here for the shadowhunter ceremony but he couldn’t find it in him to speak. Maryse had already broken down against Robert’s shoulder. They were divorced but could seem to come together for that day, to mourn the child that never should have fallen before them. Their eldest, their beloved Alec. The voice that spoke surprised Magnus.   
  
“Alec Lightwood.” Rafael’s voice was strong, that of a leader. Magnus knew without a doubt that he would follow in his dad’s footsteps. He would be a terrific shadowhunter with Jace guiding him. Magnus would have felt the pride swallow him if the grief hadn’t already.   
  
Magnus couldn’t do this. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye. The warlock had never hated the color white so much.   
  


* * *

  
That night he was graced with both of his boys in the apartment. Dinner felt empty and all too quiet between the trio. Magnus hated the empty chair across from him. He hated everything about this and wondered when he would get used to it.   
  
They’d changed out of their whites. Rafael and Max had already settled into bed when Magnus made his way to his bedroom. The one he’d shared with Alec. Magnus immediately understood the feeling in his chest; he couldn’t stay in their bed, not that night. Not so soon after.   
  
When he walked back out to the living room, though, he found Max standing in the doorway of his and Rafael’s shared bedroom. The light was back on, signaling the both of them were awake though he could only spot Max. “Max, you have to get to bed.” Magnus was amazed at how exhausted his voice sounded, how he was practically pleading with his son to just sleep the rest of the day away. He didn’t want to face anyone anymore.   
  
“Papa, can we-” Max stopped himself, shaking his head and seemingly steel himself before resuming, “Can we do the rhyme?”   
  
Magnus’s heart stopped, he was sure of it. The thought of speaking a shadowhunter rhyme now, the thought of continuing a tradition that his Alec had begun and cherished, the tradition that Alec had once admitted to him that he’d missed dearly when the boys grew out of it. “Max, I’m not sure that-”   
  
“Please, Papa.” That was Rafael now, standing just behind Max. This was a rare time when his vulnerability was clearly on display. “Dad loved it. We wanted to, we wanted to say goodbye in our own way.” How could he have possibly said no?   
  
In moments the scene looked familiar. Max was sitting on top of his bed, blanket pulled up around his crossed legs. Rafael was sitting up against his headboard, legs laying flat against his blanketed bed. Magnus pulled himself to sit down between the beds, missing the man who would sit next to him. He didn’t know how to start; though both of them were present this had always been Alec’s tradition. Magnus supposed the kids were feeling the same he; just as Magnus wanted to redo that last morning together, the kids wanted to redo the last time they’d gone through this with Alec. Neither of them knew that would have been the last they’d ever do it with him.   
  
It was Rafael that spoke first, whispering quietly and with a tension that made it clear he was struggling not to break down and cry. “Black for hunting through the night,”   
  
“Just like Dad,” Max spoke, clinging to his blanket tighter. “For death and mourning, the color white.” Magnus hated the rhyme then. All of them paused, Magnus shaking his head as he tried to get the image out of his mind. The sea of white, nothing but the pale color in the institute.   
  
“Gold for a bride in her wedding gown,   
And red to call enchantment down.” Magnus knew that line well enough. He hardly ever spoke the rhyme when they’d done it before but he was sure the boys needed help now.   
  
“White silk when our bodies burn,   
Blue banners when the lost return.” Rafael’s voice cracked at ‘silk’. Magnus was sure all of them thought of the fabric tied over Alec. Magnus hated that Rafael had to see it twice; the clean ceremony and the night before when the white silk had been stained with the blood on Alec’s face. Magnus just wished he could forget the image of Alec’s concealed blues, though knew it would remain with him.   
  
The trio continued like that, cycling through each other until the rhyme had finished. When they were done, Magnus remained seated in the room. None of them spoke a word but they didn’t need to. It had begun to feel like Alec was still sitting next to Magnus, a sort of morbid comfort when he needed it most.   
  
When Magnus woke the next morning, he found he’d fallen asleep on the floor with his head resting on Max’s bed. When he looked over, he saw Jace had done the same for Rafael. He didn’t remember Jace coming by but figured Raf had called the man sometime in the night.   
  
It still hurt. Magnus’s mind was still plagued with too many images. He had no doubt, though, that his family would be okay. He was lucky enough to be given the chance at a family. His Max and Rafael, but also the family that had taken him in; Izzy and Jace, Clary and Simon, even Maryse to an extent. They all had faced the loss and they would all be there.   
  
White silk and white suits haunted the remaining, but there would be a day when Magnus could look at the world and appreciate the colors again.


End file.
